Touring
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When Luke Combs’ team won road crew of the year at the CMA Touring Awards on March 3, it marked a passing of the baton — or, more accurately, a passing of the road case — as Combs’ crew took control of a trophy that Chris Stapleton had carted around the country and across the Atlantic during 2024.
Last year marked the first time that the Country Music Association honored an entire crew, and Team Stapleton decided during a post-awards celebration to take the award out where it had been won: on the stages, on the highways and in the back of semi-trucks that took the All-American Road Show from Nashville to the people.
The trophy was unloaded at every venue and placed somewhere on, or near, the stage as a reminder to all of Stapleton’s employees of the reputation they had created. The crew of the year hardware visited the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, The O2 in London and the set of NBC’s Saturday Night Live in New York, just to pick out a few spots on its itinerary.
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“They can never change that,” tour manager Jason Hecht says. “We’re always the first name on the trophy. For us, that’s a very cool thing, and to get to carry it around, and hopefully set a little bit of a precedent, that was definitely a really big sense of pride for us.”
Stapleton’s team had pride in the gig before there was ever a trophy to recognize it. The team had to have been working hard to get that first crew award in a line of work that’s grueling at its very foundation.
“A lot of these people are up at 6 a.m., 7 a.m. — first people in the door, and they’re not walking out until you’ve got doors closing, sometimes in the morning with trucks rolling away,” says Stapleton’s manager, Red Light Management’s Clay Hunt. “There’s ebbs and flows throughout the day, but this is really long, hard work.”
If they do that work correctly, most of the concertgoers won’t give a thought to the quasi-miracle that took place in the venue, as a stage was constructed and complicated sound and lighting was installed all on the day of that particular show.
“I always kind of look at it like a sports official, a referee,” Hecht says. “If somebody’s saying your name, then something’s gone wrong. By definition, your job is to be in the shadows and to stay out of the way.”
The work is likely appreciated most by Stapleton who, along with his wife/band member, Morgane Stapleton, makes it a point to look after their team. She insisted on having a women’s bus for the female members of the crew, they remember employees’ birthdays with gifts and celebrations, and when several on the team came down with an illness during their recent Australian tour, they didn’t even ask about what kind of expenses might be involved in their recovery. They made sure the employees got medical attention, a place to recuperate and plane tickets to catch up to the tour once they had rebounded.
That kind of attentiveness is not surprising for Stapleton. When he left the 2023 Academy of Country Music Awards in Frisco, Texas, he saw the roadies hard at work and picked up a blower to help clean up confetti. He is known, according to his team, to greet the local crew at the end of a show and recognize their role in his success as they prepare to tear it all down.
“I like to play music,” Stapleton said when his team won the crew of the year honor. “Everybody [involved] helps me do that every night in ways that would not be possible in any way, shape or form if everybody wasn’t at the top of their game.”
The CMA rules around the crew of the year trophy don’t allow consecutive wins, though individual members of a team can still collect honors. Two Stapleton employees — tour videographer/photographer of the year Andy Barron and backline technician of the year Derek Benitez — were with Stapleton in Australia and unable to claim their awards in person this year. But the team watched a CMA livestream of the event from Down Under and saw the owner of Stapleton’s PR firm, Sacks & Co.’s Carla Sacks (who also reps Combs), win publicist of the year. Sacks was visibly emotional.
“I really was very overcome in a way I didn’t expect in that room,” she allows. “To look out at that community of people that rarely wants, or gets, the spotlight, and then to be recognized by those peers, hit me in a way I wasn’t really prepared for.”
In the days after his win, Barron kept at the job in Australia and New Zealand, a camera in his hands every day, constantly looking for new angles on the same songs and the same people as he documents Stapleton’s work for social media and for posterity. Even as he moves about the arenas and amphitheaters, he’s cognizant that after the artist and crew head for the next city, they leave an impression behind them.
“We want every person who’s working at the venue — the promoter, everyone involved at the place that is opening their doors up to us — we want them to be excited when we’re coming back,” Barron says. “We’ve just always treated every show like that, and everyone on our team has the same mentality.”
Mirroring the one-nighters that it represents, the crew of the year trophy moves on after one year to its next recipient, though it will still carry a plaque with Stapleton’s name — and the names of each of his team members — as Combs takes it back on the road. In some cases, the award will revisit concert halls where Stapleton carted it in 2024. But it’s certain to expand its travels with Combs’ entourage.
“We’re excited for the Luke Combs team and for them to continue on,” Hunt says. “It sounds like they’re going to try to carry on the tradition.”
Corridos bélicos pioneer Luis R Conriquez is set to hit the road with his Trakas HDSPM U.S. Tour, Billboard can announce. The Live Nation-produced stint will kick off April 25 in New York at the UBS Arena and will visit major cities across the country, including San Antonio and Las Vegas before wrapping up Oct. […]
Venue impressario Peter Shapiro is at it again with a new live music project, announcing Monday (March 10) the launch of Garcia’s, a first-of-its-kind jazz and super club in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood that was built and designed in honor of legendary Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia.
Shapiro has long collaborated with original members of the iconic 1960s band through projects like the Fare Thee Well concerts honoring the band’s 50th anniversary; he also worked as the long-time promoter for late Grateful Dead founding member Phil Lesh. For the new club, he has enlisted the help of Garcia’s family members, including his daughter Trixie Garcia, who said the inspiration for Garcia’s was “a live music club with a comfortable atmosph
The 300-capacity concert venue will feature a full bar and restaurant, says Shapiro, adding that the concept for Garcia’s comes from iconic old supper and jazz clubs of yesteryear, including New York’s Birdland, Harlem’s esteemed Bill’s Place or the Spotted Cat on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans.
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It’s a different vibe,” says Shapiro, creator of the Brooklyn Bowl venue chain and owner of the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y., and the Bearsville Theater near Woodstock, N.Y. “The club is a big open room and it kind of feels like a high-end Vegas-style supper club. It’s a got dark, red and sexy ambiance and most people will be seated in booths, but there will be some [general admission] space for standing on the outer edge for those who want to dance. For some music fans, they’ll travel to Chicago for a show and it’s going to feel like a bucket list experience. But we will also have regulars who come each night for the vibe. Music fans will love Garcia’s — they will feel like this place was built for them.”
Peter Shapiro
Joshua Skolnik
Veteran Chicago promoter Michael Berg has joined the project to support its bookings and management, with an initial lineup that includes the Blind Boys of Alabama, Grace Potter and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The venue will open March 21 with Lesh’s son, Grahame Lesh, playing with his band alongside Nashville improvisational standout and “cosmic country” creator Daniel Donato.
Garcia’s was designed by Bob Quellos of local Chicago architectural firm fc STUDIO alongside designer Tristam Steinberg. The duo developed the venue with art and designs that draw inspiration from Garcia’s life in California and his prominence in psychedelic culture. Garcia’s is decorated throughout with Garcia’s original artwork, as well as previously-unseen family portraits and posters and imagery celebrating Garcia’s favorite films, books and records.
Garcia’s “Spain meets San Francisco” menu was developed by Lowder-Tascarella Hospitality Group with a focus on American comfort food. The kitchen will be led by executive chef Ivy Carthen and the beverage program will be led by award-winning mixologist Chris Lowder. Cocktails will include a tequila-soda called “Mission In The Rain” and a White-Russian variant called “Russian Lullaby”, both honoring his Garcia’s career.
Garcia’s will be powered by Meyer Sound, and performing artists will all have access to a full multitracking and live-streaming setup. The club will feature a full backline, a new Yamaha DM7 console and a state-of-the-art lighting package to enhance the vibe.
A full list of shows can be found below. More at GarciasChicago.live.
Garcia’s
Courtesy Photo
After a difficult 2024 in which a number of major festivals closed their doors for good, Coachella sales were down and Burning Man didn’t sell out, WME global head of festivals Josh Kurfirst says, “Protecting the health of the festival business has become central to everything we do.”
“It’s no longer an incoming call business,” says Kurfirst, the son of Gary Kurfirst, former manager of Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, The B-52s, Jane’s Addiction and Garbage. Early on, the job of most festival agents, Kurfirst explains, was to field offers from festival talent buyers for artists on the WME roster, negotiate where the artist’s name would appear on the festival poster and review daily ticket sales drops. But as the market matured and evolved, he instructed his staff to get more aggressive about pitching WME acts to prospective buyers and finding opportunities for them to bookend tours and live shows around festival appearances.
“Everything is strategic,” he says. “It’s not, ‘Let’s just throw 300 bands on this festival because it’s easy.’ We don’t do things easy.”
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Despite the cancellations of such once-popular festival brands as Faster Horses, Sick New World, Something in the Water and Alter Ego, Kurfirst and his team have plenty of success stories to tell. This year, his team helped land Zach Bryan his first headliner date atop the Stagecoach festival, secure newcomer Benson Boone a top slot on the Coachella lineup, book The Killers as headliners for Lollapalooza and secure headliner slots for Luke Combs, Olivia Rodrigo, Hozier and Queens of the Stone Age at Bonnaroo.
2024 was a tough year for festival sales. What happened?
First, it’s important to acknowledge that the festival market has significantly increased in size in the last decade. When I first started, there was a smaller group of giant festivals that had most of the market share. Since then, we’ve seen the emergence of a middle tier, a lower tier, a genre-specific tier and a lifestyle branch of festivals. And those have taken some market share away from the crossover contemporaries — the Coachellas, the Lollapaloozas and the Bonnaroos of the world. There’s really something out there for everyone now as long as you’re willing to travel. Look at Morgan Wallen’s new Sand in My Boots festival on the same site as the old Hangout Festival, which had been a steady market for years. Some years it sold out. Some years, it came close, but it never blew out on the on-sale. All of a sudden, Wallen comes in and launches his own festival on the site and it sells out instantly.
Atop a bowl of all-access festival and tour laminates, Kurfirst displays a copy of photographer Lynn Goldsmith’s Music in the ’80s book, open to a shot of the Talking Heads, whom his father, Gary, managed.
DeSean McClinton-Holland
What did Wallen do differently from Hangout Festival?
Instead of trying to create an event that appealed to as many people as possible, Wallen created an event that overdelivered to his fan base. He rebranded the festival under his own name and booked more than a dozen similar artists that he believes will connect with his fans. [This year’s lineup includes Bailey Zimmerman, Post Malone, Wiz Khalifa and The War on Drugs.] If you’re a fan of Morgan Wallen, then you won’t want to miss out on the Sand in My Boots festival. And, by the way, if you live in the Southeast, it might be your only chance to see him play this year.
How are overall festival sales so far, compared with 2024?
Last year was interesting. It wasn’t just straight down. It was choppy water. This year is still early. Most of the festivals just announced their lineups, and from what I’m hearing, it’s been positive. The overall market feels like a bounce-back year, and a lot of that has to do with the headliners. We’ve had a solid crop emerge — Olivia Rodrigo and Hozier, for instance. To a young artist like Olivia, these festivals mean something. It’s a notch on her belt and a way to do something in her career that she hadn’t done before.
Kurfirst’s mother, Phyllis, created this framed collage that, in addition to ticket stubs from concerts that Gary promoted, depicts (clockwise from top) Phyllis and her pet huskies; Gary and Phyllis at his parents’ house; and at their alma mater, Forest Hills High School.
DeSean McClinton-Holland
How do you judge success at WME?
It’s not based on quantity or how many festival slots WME artists are on. We’re very selective. We’re building careers. And we want to make sure when it’s our clients, they’re in the right cycle in terms of their music cycle. Typically, that means the artist has new music ready for the fans to discover and plans for either touring or other dates that they want to build momentum behind. They’re going to play the right slot, they’re going to get the right billing, they’re going to get the right money. That’s the time to play the festival. If any of those things are off, we’ll just do our own thing — meaning, we’ll work with a promoter, headline our own tour and continue building their hard-ticket business, which is incredibly important for all our artists.
Are festivals still a healthy launching pad for an artist’s career?
They are a good developing mechanism for new artists, but again, it has to be the right moment. I don’t know that it would make sense to just throw a new artist that doesn’t have any music out on a festival [stage] at 12:30 p.m. when the doors open. That’s a wasted booking. It would be better for that artist to be in cycle, have music out, have some press, garner some reviews ahead of time, so people actually have the ability to do their research and [want to] show up in front of their stage.
Pillows commemorating Madison Square Garden shows by artist clients whom Kurfirst represents in addition to overseeing WME’s festival division.
DeSean McClinton-Holland
The festival market has had an uptick in cancellations in recent years. In that environment, how does WME maintain a positive relationship with promoters?
We look at the promoters as our partners. They’re not on the other side of the table; they’re on the same side of the table. We want them to succeed, and we have their backs. In return, they have our backs, too.
What does it mean to have each other’s backs?
With festivals, artists sometimes have to cancel. Sometimes they get sick, they break a leg, the album gets pushed. Sometimes it’s our clients. Sometimes it’s clients from other agencies. What we do in those situations is we don’t bury our heads in the sand. If it’s a Saturday at 3 p.m. or 7 p.m. or 7 a.m., we’re there for our buyers to fill that slot that suddenly becomes open. And because we book things through one point of contact, the buyer only has to contact one person at WME. That’s his partner, his festival agent, and that festival agent then canvasses the entire roster and can come back with real-time avails within hours.
Kurfirst with his four kids, from left: Landon, 17; Ariela, 11; Eden, 11; and Lucas, 21.
Courtesy of Josh Kurfirst
Are you bullish on the long-term prospects of the festival business?
It’s a very Darwinian environment out there and the strong will survive. There are times where we have to have tough conversations with our promoter partners and come to a fair settlement where our clients feel good, but where we don’t put the promoter out of business. Because that doesn’t help anyone. Make no mistake: When we do a deal, our clients are entitled to 100% of the money if a festival cancels due to poor sales. There are some reasons why a promoter can cancel, like a pandemic. But in most cases, if a festival is canceled, it’s due to poor sales or some sort of promoter breach, and our clients are entitled to 100% of the money. It’s our job to come up with a fair settlement where the client feels good and the promoter is able to get back up on their feet.
What’s one of the most important lessons your father taught you?
He taught me that loving what you do is the single most important decision we make as adults. If you don’t, you can’t bring passion to the job every day. He also taught me about not trying to be someone else. Don’t just go with the trend. He equated that in how he chose the artists he wanted to work with, whether it be the Talking Heads, the Ramones, The B-52s, the Eurythmics, Jane’s Addiction and Mountain. These bands weren’t genre-defining — they invented their genres.
This story appears in the March 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.
On the evening of July 23, 2024, the last night of her global tour and her fourth sold-out date at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, a visibly emotional Karol G told the crowd of 55,000: “I’m going to say that truly, tonight will be the most amazing of my life.”
It was, at the very least, a grand finale to the highest-grossing tour ever by a Latin female artist, grossing $313.3 million across 56 concerts, according to Billboard Boxscore. Karol G’s Madrid shows were also record-setting, selling 220,000 tickets and making her the first artist to sell out four shows at the stadium, which finished renovations earlier in 2024.
The fact that a Latin American artist could move so many tickets in a major European city underscores Spain’s growing importance as not just a bridge for Latin music between the Americas and Europe but also a place for music in Spanish — the new global pop — to grow.
In 2023, Spanish promoters and venues reported gross ticket sales of nearly 579 million euros ($604.5 million) to Spain’s Association of Music Promoters, an extraordinary 26.5% increase from revenue of 459 million euros ($479 million) in 2022. While Karol G, Luis Miguel and Taylor Swift brought stadium headlining tours to the country, according to its ministry of culture, Spanish talent is also robustly represented at the stadium level with recent shows from Manuel Carrasco and Dellafuente.
Numbers from the country’s ministry of culture, compiled by the legal and business management firm Sympathy for the Lawyer, show that 40.5% of concertgoers in 2024 attended shows of Spanish pop/rock, followed by 11.1% who went to see canción de autor (similar to singer-songwriter performances).
Meanwhile, beyond the live scene, Spain’s music consumption has grown exponentially.
According to year-end numbers reported by Promusicae, Spain’s music industry trade group, there were 98.5 billion audio streams across all platforms in 2024, compared with 87 billion the previous year. More than 1,180 artists notched over 10 million streams and 70 had more than 100 million streams.
That report of growth aligns with figures from global music industry trade association IFPI. In its Engaging With Music report, IFPI stated that Spanish music consumers averaged 22.1 hours per week of listening, compared with the global average of 20.7.
Spain’s receptiveness to music of all genres and provenance is evident in its five top-selling albums of 2024. According to Promusicae, Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was the bestseller, followed by Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito at No. 2, Spanish artists Quevedo’s Donde Quiero Estar at No. 3 and Saiko’s Sakura at No. 4 and Bad Bunny’s 2022 album, Un Verano Sin Ti, at No. 5.
Quevedo at the 2024 Latin Grammy Awards in Miami.
Jason Koerner/Getty Images
No wonder labels are increasingly turning to Spain to develop pan-regional artists. Examples include the success of Colombian artist Camilo after the pandemic; Venezuela’s Joaquina, who won best new artist at the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards and whose first tours were in Spain; and Colombian stadium pop-rock band Morat, which is signed to Universal Music Spain.
And although Spanish-born artists have a tougher time crossing over into the U.S. and Latin American markets than vice versa, a new generation of acts that includes Quevedo, Rels B, Bad Gyal, Aitana, Arde Bogotá and Rosalía is showing that reaching fans in the Americas may be more feasible than ever.
Fifteen months after the Latin Grammys were held in Spain in November 2023 — the show’s first foray outside the United States — Billboard will host a reception for Spain’s industry leaders on March 18 and recently spoke with some of those executives to ask what’s next for the dynamic market.
‘A Flow Of Cultures In Two Directions’
Given its crucial location as an entryway into Europe and its cultural significance as the birthplace of Spanish, “Spain is a place of fusion between Anglo and Hispanic cultures. It’s a flow of talent and culture in two directions,” says Vicent Argudo, head of music for Prisa Media. “Spain imports Latin styles into the old continent and adapts them to pop. It’s a place for mainstream experimentation.” While Spain for years seemed impenetrable for Latin American genres like reggaetón and regional Mexican, an influx of immigrants, coupled with increasing global acceptance of the Spanish language, has turned Spain into a market that imports and reinvents genres. “Spain gives Latin sounds a pop vision that makes them more accessible to the world,” Argudo says.
A Breeding Ground For International Talent
For José María Barbat, president of Sony Music Iberian Peninsula, Spain is a nonstop talent generator, from Julio Iglesias in the ’80s to Rosalía or C. Tangana today.
“In this context, we’re certain the next big Spanish star is around the corner,” Barbat says. “We continue to see artists with the skills necessary to jump to an international stage, showing there’s not only talent but also an industry ecosystem ready to channel all that creativity.” Proof of that is Arde Bogotá, a Spanish rock band garnering success in an urban world. “It speaks to the importance of keeping an eye out not just for popular genres,” he says, “but for talent coming out of niche genres.”
Artist To Watch: “I’m particularly excited about Lia Kali, a very well-rounded and very young artist we just signed,” Barbat says. “She has a mind-blowing voice and the ability to cross over in a big way into other Latin markets.”
Rosalía at the 2024 Met Gala in New York.
Mike Coppola/MG24/Getty Images
The Power Of A Cutting-Edge Stadium
The Spanish music industry is experiencing a golden era, a prime example of which, says Live Nation Spain president Pino Sagliocco, is the newly renovated Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and the sold-out shows it has hosted from Spanish artists Hombres G and Alejandro Sanz, as well as Swift and Colombia’s Karol G. “Those tours highlight unprecedented growth in Spain’s music history, breaking records in the years after the pandemic,” Sagliocco says. “The global industry now recognizes the country’s leadership and enormous potential as a key platform for the growth of Latin music in Europe.” While concerts at Bernabéu were suspended last September due to noise ordinance issues, its string of sold-out shows by artists both local and international highlighted the enormous, previously untapped potential of a state-of-the-art stadium in the nation’s touristy capital. “The global industry now recognizes the country’s leadership and enormous potential as a key platform for the growth of Latin music in Europe,” Sagliocco says.
Spanish As The ‘New Normal’
For José Luis Sevillano, CEO of AIE — Spain’s collecting society for performers, with over 35,000 members in Spain alone and representing the rights of over 800,000 performers globally — music in Spanish is on the brink of “becoming a magnificent new normal.” Not only does music in Spanish now top global charts, “but at the same time it’s placed new value on the diversity and plurality of our culture in the entire world,” he says. AIE’s most recently reported numbers registered a 29% growth in rights collection last year compared with 2023, and AIE’s study on consumption habits in Spain also found that Spanish-language music was more listened to than English-language music on streaming platforms. Plus, after 30 years of work, Spain adopted new legislation providing better compensation and working conditions for artists and musicians. “This will eventually lead to a more just and balanced music ecosystem,” Sevillano says, “which is basic in allowing creators to develop their talent to its full potential.”
Challenge For 2025: “Finding a responsible, respectful and balanced development of [artificial intelligence] for artists,” Sevillano says.
A Streaming Boom
Streaming dominates Spanish music consumption, accounting for nearly 90% of the market, according to Promusicae. Meanwhile, Spanish artists have become major streaming draws worldwide. In 2023, Spanish acts generated royalties of more than 123 million euros ($128.5 million) on Spotify, which is almost four times the royalties they generated on the platform in 2017, according to Spotify’s head of music for Southern and Eastern Europe, Melanie Parejo. That growth “is reflected in local consumption but also in the capacity to generate global business,” Parejo says, noting that over 50% of all royalties generated by Spanish artists on Spotify in 2023 came from listeners outside of Spain. In 2024, Rels B was the Spanish artist most listened to outside of Spain.
Rels B attended Milan Fashion Week in 2024.
Pietro S. D’Aprano/Getty Images
An ‘Explosion’ Of Talent
What was once an insular market is now having an international impact. “The Spanish music industry has undergone a radical transformation in the last decade, becoming a market with great global projection with artists like Rosalía, C. Tangana, Quevedo and an explosion of indie proposals like La La Love You,” says Carlos Galán, host of industry podcast Simpatía por la Industria. “Stylistic barriers have been broken, and even the chasm that existed between alternative and mainstream has grown smaller.”
Challenge For 2025: The fact that “every day there’s a new festival” is huge, Galán says. “But truly, it’s a bubble I’m afraid to see burst. All have identical lineups, little innovation and no one is betting on emerging talent.”
Sponsors Serious About Music
Few brand initiatives surrounding music are as complex and developed as Banco Santander’s Santander SMusic. The bank offers a 360 media platform that includes editorial content and live performances, in addition to its branded events, concerts and partnerships with labels and artists. “In a year we’ve executed over 235 presales and sold 600,000 tickets, becoming a point of reference for music in Spain and creating a complete ecosystem of exclusive content,” says Felipe Martín Martín, Santander España’s director of media, sponsorships and events. Santander’s SMusic has partnerships with festivals including Mad Cool, Sonorama and Rockland, as well as with companies like Universal, Sony and Los 40. But Martín Martín is especially excited about the growth of music tourism in Spain, “maximizing that No. 1 spot Spain has held in the global ranking of tourism to music festivals since 2022.”
An International Gateway
Spain’s geography offers easy access from both the United States and Latin America and to the rest of Europe. “It has the potential [to be a] port of entry for Latin artists to other European markets, particularly the U.K., France, Italy and Germany, who all provide strategic opportunities in the live market,” says Narcis Rebollo, president/CEO of Universal’s Global Talent Service, which manages and books over 100 artists including Aitana, Pablo Alborán, David Bisbal, Lola Índigo and Joaquina. The potential is already being realized in Spain, where ticket sales jumped more than 26% from 2022 to 2023 and more than 250% in the last decade, according to Spain’s Association of Music Promoters.
Growing Trend: “Brand investment in music has grown more than 100%,” Rebollo says, “with music being used as a new driver for brands to position their products.”
Aitana performed at the 2024 Morrina Festival at Port of A Coruna in A Coruna, Spain.
Cristina Andina/Redferns
A Good Partner
Spain’s impressive market stats, including its sizable listening and streaming growth per capita, make it a source of local talent and a priority for imported talent. “We’re listening to more than 260 million songs per day,” Warner Music Iberia president Guillermo González Arévalo says. “Coming to Spain to promote their new albums has had a great return on investment and recognition for artists like Dua Lipa, Myke Towers, Coldplay, Charli xcx and Linkin Park, who have charted high on our charts paving the way for their next tours.” In 2024, Towers was the most listened to artist on Spotify in Spain.
Looking Forward: Warner is also expanding activity in its recently opened music hub in Madrid. “Each day more music is written, and there are more collaborations created with Latin artists,” González Arévalo says.
A Flexible Market In Constant Evolution
Spain’s music market is known today for its strong festival culture and its affinity for music in Spanish, regardless of origin — and it has been receptive to new trends of late. In November 2023, the popular reality music competition Operación Triunfo relaunched on Amazon Prime Video. “It highlighted the extraordinary capacity of the format to adapt to new digital consumption trends, bringing in traditional viewers and new generations,” head of Amazon Music Spain Claire Imoucha says of the show, which will return in September. Christmas music also got a boost in new formats, with artists like David Bisbal, Niña Pastori, and Camilo and Evaluna (who had an Amazon Music Original song in November) reimagining traditional repertoire and “consolidating Christmas as a key consumption period.”
What Comes Next: “Spanish music is living an extraordinary moment, with genres like rock and flamenco displaying their capacity for evolution and renovation,” Imoucha says. “Artists like Arde Bogotá and Carolina Durante are leaders in a new rock scene, and artists like Israel Fernandez, María José Llergo and Ángeles Toledano are bringing a contemporary twist to historic genres.”
Antonio Garcia (left) and Pepe Esteban of Arde Bogotá onstage at the Coca Cola Music Experience Festival in Madrid in 2024.
Juan Naharro Gimenez/Redferns
A Consolidated Value Chain
“Our music industry is a very professionalized industry in every sector of its value chain,” Promusicae president Antonio Guisasola says. “In addition, we have great artistic talent that is mixing genres and renovating the different roots genres of the many cultures that coexist in Spain.” A sign of maturity of the market was the launch of its Spanish Academy of Music, “where all music professionals in the country get together to honor the work we did in the year,” Guisasola says, and the first Academy of Music Awards took place last June.
Beyond Major Cities
The growth of Spain’s music scene has translated to consumption outside major cities, says Alfonso Santiago, CEO of concert promoter Last Tour, which also puts together the annual BIME conferences in Bilbao, Spain, and Bogotá, Colombia. “There’s a wide spectrum of cities beyond the big capitals that have good venues and audiences that respond favorably,” he says. That openness is particularly evident and growing among younger generations. “Traditionally, adult fans have been more close-minded,” he says. “I’m excited to see a young audience open to discovering new things.”
A Rich Culture
Spain’s location has helped foster its rich musical output. “We have a confluence of music from Latin America, Northern Africa, local folklore and, of course, our great contribution to the world’s art, flamenco,” Sony Music Spain GM Blanca Salcedo says. Sony’s new 5020 Studios have become a perfect place to mine that cultural landscape. The studios, which opened a year ago, “are hugely valuable for this purpose,” Salcedo says. “It’s a unique space that combines the best technology, design and services to foster our artists’ creativity.”
A Festival Destination; Many Collaborations
In addition to its massive stadium concerts, Spain hosts nearly 900 music festivals a year, according to the latest Oh, Holy Festivals report. “Spain has established itself as a key market for tours and festivals, positioning itself as a global tourism destination for music,” says Jorge Iglesias, founder and CEO of concert promoter Iglesias Entertainment. In addition, a series of very successful cross-cultural collaborations — including Quevedo and Bizarrap’s “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52,” which topped Billboard’s Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts in 2022 — has renewed interest in the country as a talent incubator.
A Prominent Indie Scene
The diversity of genres in Spain “is richer than ever,” says Believe Spain GM Maite Díez, adding, “The local independent scene has gained great prominence.” Case in point: Indie artist Iñigo Quintero, whose hit “Si No Estás” made history as the first track by a solo Spanish artist to reach No. 1 on Spotify’s global chart. On Spotify, nearly 60% of all royalties generated by Spanish artists come from indie labels or artists, Díez says. By extension, there has been “an explosion of new talent that has gone from the digital ecosystem to massive success,” including Daniela Blasco, a finalist at the Benidorm Fest song contest.
A Mature Industry
Beyond streaming strength, “Spain’s music industry is mature in all its subsectors,” says Soco Collado, president of Spain’s music federation Es Música, which represents and promotes the industry’s collective interests. “We have huge established artists, a young scene creating spectacular things and the companies working at every level are very solid and are investing,” she says. The sustained growth of streaming stands out for Collado, and she’s particularly excited about a new generation of very young female artists who are “super committed and creating musical marvels,” including flamenco artists María José Llergo, Angeles Toledano and La Tania.
New Opportunities
Universal Music Spain co-managing director Alicia Arauzo was struck by the recent success of David Bisbal’s Todo Es Posible en Navidad, which topped Promusicae’s albums chart in December. “It feels like we tapped a local vein with Christmas music, opening up an eternal opportunity [for the music],” she says. The proliferation of stadium concerts has also been a breakthrough for Spain, she says, along with “the growing strength of female talent, both local and international.”
This story appears in the March 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Billboard‘s Branding Power Players list demonstrates that corporations sponsoring concerts is one of the music business’ crucial revenue streams, allowing artists to put on more massive tours than they may have done otherwise and promoters to keep the lights on in their arenas and amphitheaters. In its public filings, Live Nation, the world’s biggest promoter, […]
This summer, Bad Bunny is set to transform Puerto Rico’s typically quieter season with a 30-show residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot (a.k.a. El Choli). Choosing not to tour globally, the Puerto Rican superstar will instead showcase his latest album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, exclusively on his home turf from July 11 to Sept. 14. The extraordinary demand for tickets — with 400,000 selling within four hours, half to international tourists — confirms the residency’s global appeal and its potential to substantially enhance the island’s local economy during its sweltering summer months.
This residency concept represents a first for Puerto Rico. Although the Coliseo has hosted multiple back-to-back shows in the past, with artists such as Daddy Yankee and Wisin & Yandel performing on consecutive weekends, the scope and magnitude of Bunny’s residency has never been seen before. This series of 30 shows is unprecedented not only for the number of shows but also for the intensity of the preparation and the international anticipation it’s been generating.
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On Jan. 5, Bunny released Debí Tirar, which reached No. 1 on multiple all-genre charts, including the Billboard 200 and Top Streaming Albums. Reflecting on this success, Benito told Billboard a few weeks after releasing the album, “Man, obviously I’m thankful with the way the world has embraced this album. The thing is, this project… it isn’t mine. It belongs to many people: everyone who worked with me, it belongs to Puerto Rico, my friends, my family. This project belongs to all of us who feel proud of being from Puerto Rico and being Latin.”
In anticipation of the residency, Alejandro Pabón, the Move Concerts promoter behind the residency, details the extensive preparations necessary to accommodate such an unprecedented influx of fans. “We’re expecting around 200,000 people from abroad visiting the island,” he says. “All the local businesses are going to be impacted. All the hotels are sold out. Today [Feb. 13], a local newspaper put out an article saying that for the residency dates, there’s a 70% surge on AirBnB.” While the volume of business will be overwhelming, Pabón mentions that the event’s organization relies on local labor, creating more job opportunities for Puerto Rican residents. “All the hotel staffing are going to have to level up because they’re expecting 100% capacity for those three months,” he says.
Preparing for the residency presents a complex challenge, introducing a level of scale and coordination previously unseen in Puerto Rico’s entertainment history. But it also promises to bring a raft of economic benefits to the island not typically seen during the summer season.
“Traditionally, July is the slowest month show-wise for the venue since forever. So we went and found the slowest period and booked it, which definitely is helping the economy,” says Pabón.
Travel and concierge expert Rob Dellibovi, who serves as founder/CEO of RDB Hospitality, elaborates on the strategic timing of the residency and its benefits to the local economy. “A time where it’s probably 30-40% occupancy, it’ll be like 90% because of all these shows,” he says. “The fact that they’re doing this in July and August is going to be a huge win for the island because nobody’s there at those times [due to the heat]. They’re not displacing any other kind of revenue; they’re just bringing people during the slow season to Puerto Rico.”
Pabón notes that Puerto Rico is well-equipped for major events, boasting a “state-of-the-art arena,” abundant “natural resources, great restaurants, and a lot of hotels.” Unlike typical residencies in cities like Las Vegas that feature international artists, this local showcase will potentially alter perceptions of the island as a global tourist hotspot.
Building on this framework, Coliseo de Puerto Rico has established itself as a rite of passage to Latin pop superstars and beyond. Situated in the heart of San Juan’s Milla de Oro, the venue has held some of Latin music’s most important events of the 21st century. A sold-out Coliseo performance is an affirmation of star power.
The Coliseo De Puerto Rico
Al Bello/Getty Images
El Coliseo is no stranger to record-breaking events. In 2021, Karol G made history by becoming the first international female artist to set the record for the fastest ticket sales at the venue with two sold-out dates. More than a decade earlier, on March 14, 2010, Metallica became the fastest-selling concert ever at the Coliseo, drawing a crowd of 17,286. However, Bad Bunny has already surpassed Metallica’s record twice: first in March 2019 and again in July 2022. In 2019, Daddy Yankee broke Wisin & Yandel’s record for the most consecutive sold-out shows at the venue with a total of 10 concerts as part of his Con Calma Pa’l Choli tour — a record Benito is now poised to break.
Jorge L. Pérez, the general manager of Coliseo de Puerto Rico, calls Bad Bunny’s upcoming residency a “historic event.” He tells Billboard that in August 2023, Pabón and Noah Assad, Bad Bunny’s manager, unveiled the concept of the residency to him. “I was blown away,” says Pérez, underscoring the complexity of keeping the plans under wraps. “When they started working the room blocks, I got calls from a lot of skeptical hoteliers. They were like, ‘Why are they asking for so many rooms?! What is happening?!’ I was like, ‘I can’t reveal that information, give them all the available inventory that you have. We have a signed contract at Coliseo. This is legit.’”
With the months-long advance notice of 30 sold-out shows, Pérez says the planning becomes much more manageable. Helping matters, he says, is the fact that they are sourcing all concessions products locally, with the venue to feature a special menu highlighting local delicacies such as “alcapurrias and bacalaitos,” embracing Puerto Rican culinary traditions.
“[This residency] will position Puerto Rico as a premier entertainment destination,” says Pérez. “It will open the eyes of visitors who have never come to Puerto Rico. It will create awareness of Puerto Rico as an entertainment and leisure destination.”
Pérez says that growth has been evident in the post-COVID era, as the Coliseo has consistently ranked in the top 20 on Pollstar’s year-end list of highest ticket sales among arenas globally. On Billboard’s 2024 year-end list of Top Venues (15,001+ capacity), Coliseo de Puerto Rico was ranked No. 39, with a gross of $52.5 million and 750,000 tickets sold.
With the Bad Bunny residency and other scheduled events, Pérez says he expects to set a sales record at Coliseo, projecting total ticket sales between 1.3 and 1.4 million for the first time in a single year. He adds that the venue is on track to hold more than 100 events in a single year — another milestone. Because of Bunny’s residency, he says there’s potential for the Coliseo to place among the top five on Billboard’s year-end Top Venues chart. At a minimum, projections show 2025 sales increasing by 73% from last year.
While the venue has hosted residencies before, such as Daddy Yankee with 12 shows in 2019 and Wisin & Yandel with 14 in 2022, this is the first time the Coliseo has accommodated a residency of this magnitude, says Pérez. “The uniqueness about this is a call made by the artist, saying, ‘I released a new album that’s at the top of the charts globally, and I am not going on tour. If you want to see these concerts, you have to come to my island.’ I believe that this call is what makes this residency very special — and the impact it will have on the island’s economy,” he says.
“They’re digging into what the whole Vegas set up is,” says Dellibovi, describing the economic strategy behind such events. “The casinos know that if they have a huge act like Adele, Céline Dion or whoever is doing a residency…people are going to fly in for it — and the casino itself is going to make a ton of money.”
Of the potential ripple effects the Bunny residency might have on the global entertainment scene, Dellibovi hints that it could spawn a new potential trend. “Is Andrea Bocelli going to do an Italian residency? I have no idea,” he says. “I just think it’s super cool that this is going to spark a whole new residency game, in my opinion, where people are going to go to all these places to see the artist in their homeland. Every international artist from any country is going to be like, ‘Oh s—, I’m going to go back to wherever I’m from and have a month of shows and make a lot of money.’ Those cities are going to want it because there are slow seasons. They need it. Everyone’s going to want to support this.”
Echoing this sentiment, Pabón emphasizes the significance of cultural representation and local benefit: “Who wouldn’t want to showcase their hometown or contribute to it in a positive way? It’s not just going to be the Sphere or the MGM [Grand in Las Vegas] doing residences.”
Traveling to Puerto Rico is particularly convenient for Americans, as only a driver’s license is required for entry. Given this ease of access, Puerto Rico is well-positioned to outpace other popular Caribbean destinations such as Mexico and the Dominican Republic in attracting American tourists, Dellibovi points out.
“This is a big trip for people. That’s a party weekend,” he says. “Make sure you’re stocked and make sure your vibe is right. Make sure that you’re ready to deal with a crowd that’s there to have fun. This is not your typical beach crowd. This is going to be people who are in town to party.”
With more than 1.1 million Puerto Ricans residing in the New York metropolitan area, accounting for 6.7% of New York City’s population in 2020, according to the New York Academy of Sciences, the city not only serves as a significant cultural epicenter for the Puerto Rican diaspora but also stands as a primary source of attendees for major events in Puerto Rico. He expects that will be the case here as well.
“New York is the number one [demographic] of people that are going to come visit,” Pabón says. “I’m definitely expecting a lot of second and third-generation Puerto Ricans to come back home. I know that for a lot of them it is going to be the first time that they’ll come visit, because not all of them have had the chance to be here. I know it’s going to be a special [destination] that’s going to let them connect with their island. It was the artist’s idea to create this synergy between them and their island.”
According to the Puerto Rico Report, there are about 5.8 million Puerto Ricans living in the United States, compared with 3.2 million on the Island.
“This is like a pilgrimage, a Hajj for Puerto Ricans,” echoes Dellibovi. “If you’re Puerto Rican, and you love Bad Bunny, who’s not going to want to go to the homeland and see him? It’s the coolest experience ever for actual Puerto Ricans [living abroad].’ He continues, “Bad Bunny is the biggest Latin artist in the world. He is the only Latin artist who can sell out a stadium in any city in the world. He can go to Sweden, Tokyo, Sydney, anywhere. It’s very rare for a Latin artist to be able to do that.”
Pabón emphasizes the deeper motivation behind the residency, reflecting a sentiment shared by his team: “We’re doing this not just for business, that’s secondary. This is done for our country, for our identity, because we really love Puerto Rico. The artist really loves it. Noah really loves it, and all the team. It’s personal. We’re all really excited and happy about this.”
Less than a year after dropping his Jamaican Situation EP, two-time Grammy-nominated Jamaican reggae star Protoje is set to embark on a world tour — and he’s also just dropped his highly anticipated new single.
On March 9, Protoje will hit the stage at Australia’s WOMADelaide festival before spending the rest of the month hitting stops across Europe, including Lisbon, Portugal; Berlin; and Copenhagen, Denmark. On April 4, the “Who Knows” singer will kick off the U.S. leg of the tour with an appearance at the Reggae Rise Up festival in Tempe, Ariz. Over the following month and a half, Protoje will visit fans in Southern cities across the states, including Miami, Atlanta and Asheville, N.C. By July 25, he’ll return to Europe for the final leg of the tour, playing festivals across the continent, including Sweden’s Uppsala Reggae Festival (July 25) and Austria’s One Love Reggae Festival (Aug. 9). The international trek will conclude on Nov. 29 at La Cigale in Paris.
To accompany his tour announcement, Protoje also unveiled a new single titled “Big 45.” Inspired by Jamaica’s iconic sound system culture, the St. Elizabeth-hailing artist-producer has crafted a booming, bass-driven track that playfully teases a rap-sung cadence over a sultry, groovy instrumental. “Big 45” — produced by The Indiggnation and Winta James — also arrives alongside a SAMO-helmed music video. The clip prominently features the massive sound systems traveling through the streets of JA.
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“This is just a reggae and dancehall anthem,” Protoje said in a press release. “It’s talking about sound system, it’s talking about live music … the moment we started [playing] it, everybody got excited because we knew it was one of those ‘bring everyone together’ type of songs.”
After teasing “Big 45” on socials and in his live shows, Protoje has finally released the song. The new track is a natural progression from the national pride that colored tracks such as “Where We Come From” from last year’s Jamaican Situation EP. Protoje’s last solo full-length album was 2022’s Third Time’s the Charm, which featured collaborations with Jorja Smith, Lila Iké, Samory I and Jesse Royal.
Protoje has sent five consecutive projects to the top 10 of Reggae Albums, including two chart-toppers: 2015’s Ancient Future and 2018’s A Matter of Time. In 2018, he entered the Emerging Artist chart for the very first time at No. 42.
Check out the dates for Protoje’s 2025 world tour below.
March 9 — Australia @ WOMADelaide
March 14 — New Zealand @ Womad Aotearoa
March 19 — Aarau, Switzerland @ KIFF
March 21 — Barcelona, Spain @ Razzmatazz
March 22 — Lisbon, Portugal @ Disaster Club
March 25 — Berlin, Germany @ Maaya Club
March 26 — Hamburg, Germany @ Fabrik
March 27 — Cologne, Germany @ Die Kantine
March 28 — Copenhagen, Denmark @ Grey Hall
March 29 — Legorreta, Spain @ Legoreggae
April 4 — Tempe, Ariz. @ Reggae Rise Up
April 16 — Miami, Fla. @ Miami Beach Bandshell
April 17 — St. Petersburg, Fla. @ Jannus Live
April 18 — Ormond Beach, Fla. @ Granada Theatre
April 19 — Atlanta, Ga. @ Sweetwater 420 Fest
April 20 — Asheville, N.C. @ Orange Peel
May 23 — Monterey, Calif. @ California Roots
May 30 — Durango, Colo. @ Rise and Vibes
July 12 — Marshfield, Mass. @ Levitate Music Festival
July 25 — Uppsala, Sweden @ Uppsala Reggae Festival
July 26 — Fraga, Spain @ Monegros Desert Festival
Aug. 1 — Geel, Belgium @ Reggae Geel Festival
Aug. 2 — Milton Keynes, U.K. @ Reggaeland
Aug. 9 — Wiesen, Austria @ One Love Reggae Festival
Aug. 10 — Saint-Malo, France @ No Logo BZH
Nov. 20 — Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
Nov. 21 — Zurich, Switzerland @ Rote Fabrik
Nov. 29 — Paris, France @ La Cigale
Ukrainian electro-folk duo ONUKA spent last summer touring European concert halls and headlining festivals. Now, due to a recent wartime directive, they must remain inside their home country — so the band boards trains and buses to gigs at underground shelters, as well as buildings near metro stations, in case Russian missile attacks interrupt the music.
“These shelters can accommodate up to 1,000 people. It’s a big concrete room with some seats,” says Eugene Filatov, 41, ONUKA’s producer, who performs with his wife, frontwoman Nata Zhyzhchenko, 39, and five bandmates. “People still need this cultural life.”
The group recently downsized its 2025 touring ambitions due to a late-February announcement by Ukraine’s culture ministry: As of March 3, male Ukrainian “journalists and culture professionals” of draft age will no longer receive recommendation letters for traveling abroad. So ONUKA is performing closer to its Kyiv home, readying a new album, the long-delayed Ukrainian Constructivism, for release next month, and spending more time with the couple’s children, 4-year-old Alex and 1-year-old Lina.
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By Telegram call from Kyiv, three days after U.S. President Donald Trump‘s chaotic and disturbing Oval Office news conference with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Filatov and Zhyzhchenko discuss the long-term impact of Russia’s February 2022 invasion on their family and music. (Filatov, who has an “education sector” deferral from military enlistment because he is a lecturer at Ukraine’s Chernihiv Music College, also responded to follow-up email questions.)
When we previously spoke in 2023, ONUKA was still touring the world. Nata said, “When you are outside, especially when your child or parents or family is here, it’s very hard to accept.” How is your family? Is everybody OK?
Zhyzhchenko: Our kids are safe. They’re all right. The first night, in maternity hospital, [Lina] spent the night inside. That was the worst night for us. I think she’s a war kid. She decided to come to our family in a country that is at war, in a city at war, in the night.
“War kid.”
Zhyzhchenko: This generation of children are totally war kids. They have another mentality, and this is their route, this is their life, this is their routine. We don’t have to compare our childhood with their childhood, because they are another generation. They are a war generation.
In our past interviews, you’ve spoken of Russian missiles disturbing your lives. Are explosions still happening where you live in Kyiv?
Zhyzhchenko: It’s still going on. We have another kind of weapons. It’s like flying scooters.
Filatov: It’s like big drones. Every night, there are a couple hundred of them. We sometimes hear it.
Zhyzhchenko: It sounds like a scooter, and they are flying at nighttime. That’s why the sound spreads very brightly, and physically that is why we can define them from a few kilometers. When we are lying in our beds, it’s some kind of big noise scooter sound in the sirens of night.
How terrifying.
Filatov: Thanks for the American people who are supporting Ukraine. We feel much more safe, because American systems are really, really huge and really helpful. It saves our lives. The explosions happen mostly every day, somewhere, in some cities of Ukraine.
Zhyzhchenko: It doesn’t stop.
Filatov: It’s kind of a lottery.
Zhyzhchenko: A few weeks ago, some piece of this drone collapsed near our house, and it injured the post office. This is the post office —
Filatov: — where we take our packages mostly every day.
Zhyzhchenko: Even a few times a day. It’s close here to us, less than a kilometer. We have this acceptance. It’s our reality.
Filatov: Life goes on, anyway.
How are you able to play shows under these conditions?
Filatov: Performing in shelters is a relatively new practice for Ukrainian artists. In Kharkiv, all cultural events take place exclusively in venues that have shelters — no theaters or concert halls operate unless they provide a safe space.
Zhyzhchenko: Everything happens under rockets. We have to take that fact.
What do the shelter performances feel like?
Zhyzhchenko: It’s a very pleasant feeling, because you know your performance won’t be interrupted. You have to evacuate people if you hear the siren. In a shelter, you have to not interrupt your performance. It’s some kind of comfort and very confident feeling.
How do you get to the shows?
Filatov: We usually travel either by train or by bus with the whole team. Trains can sometimes be the fastest option, especially when border queues are long, but traveling by road gives us more flexibility. So, we just trust our luck and hope for a smooth crossing. Sometimes, though, it turns into quite an adventure — like [summer 2024], when we had to travel non-stop for two days from a festival in Poland just to make it in time for Atlas Weekend in Kyiv.
Who takes care of your kids when you are performing outside of Kyiv?
Filatov: We have a support system that includes nannies, grandparents and kindergarten. They take turns depending on the circumstances.
Do your kids get to see any of the performances? What do they think?
Filatov: They are really small. Our small girl doesn’t even understand, for now, what’s going on. Our boy, Alex — it’s sad to notice that in the kindergarten, for example, they have some games, and they [name] the games after the weapons, or the missiles, or the drones.
Zhyzhchenko: When they are in kindergarten, they go to a shelter, and it is some kind of ritual. They call this shelter “the cave.” He says, “We were in the cave today, and we draw in there,” or singing some song in this cave. It’s not so terrifying for him, because it’s his reality. No one is panicking, because we have adjusted to it. The main safety is the behavior of elder people and adults around this situation.
How are the rest of your family — parents, grandparents, siblings?
Zhyzhchenko: Everyone is safe. Everyone is working with the nation and charity causes and everyone volunteers. But inside our musical team, some people are on the front line. … Everyone has some relatives or friends who [have] died and these deaths are closer and closer.
Who are you referring to, “inside our musical team”?
Zhyzhchenko: Our graphic designer was on the front line and now we have no answer [from] him. This is a hard situation, how to understand that nothing is OK. You just have to see when this person was online the last time, and you see that this date is not changing. It’s hard to realize that maybe he’s captured, maybe he’s in hospital. But I think the reality is much worse. We are trying to go through with his command, and get information about what happened to him.
What did you make of the Feb. 28 press conference with President Zelensky and President Trump?
Zhyzhchenko: All people are very upset about what’s going on. But I think all this is temporary. Everything changes so much. It’s like a roller coaster. Some days we are best friends, the next day we are enemies, the next day we are supporters, the next day it’s very chaotic.
I do hope all people in the world understand that Russia invaded Ukraine, and we are the victim and we are standing. … We defend all Europe, because everything will be changing, very fast and terrible, if Ukraine falls. I really believe we will stand and we will not fall and we will survive.
If I wanted to leave, I would leave Ukraine. But I’m here with my little kids. I actually truly and sincerely believe in this roller coaster life.
Boys Noize will open for Nine Inch Nails for the entirety of the band’s upcoming Peel It Back Tour. Nine Inch Nails’ first live run since 2022 is scheduled to start at 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland, on June 15, and move around Europe through mid-July before jumping to the U.S. beginning Aug. 3 for a […]